What Your Pet Says About You

If your pets could talk, you just may be a little nervous about them revealing secrets or tiny personality quirks that only they might be privy to.

But this is not about that.

This is about the judgments people tend to make about others based on the type of pet they choose to live with. There’s a fairly widespread belief that the pet species – dog, cat, or other creature – says something about the owner’s personality. Look no further than the term “cat lady,” synonymous with a female who is a lonely, depressed hoarder. Meanwhile a “dog lover” is thought to be a happy, amiable person.

And there is some science to suggest that the preference for a particular kind of pet may reflect some underlying human personality differences. Compiling data from several studies, some generalities emerge:

Dog owners tend to be healthier, better equipped to deal with stress, and less likely to be diagnosed with depression. Those who prefer cats tend to be much more creative and adventurous – but also more neurotic.

A survey from the University of Hertfordshire in the U.K. found that reptile owners were the most independent of all pet people. Bird owners are more likely to be socially outgoing and expressive than the rest of pet owners – even dog people. Fish owners are more likely to be engaging but introverted, because they are more diverse in their lifestyle and value beliefs.

So there. Consider yourself duly categorized. Still, it’s difficult to say whether a person’s character pushes them to pick a pet, or whether certain pets draw particular personality traits out of their owners.

FDA Relaxes Abortion Pill Restrictions

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as decided to loosen restrictions on use of the abortion pill Mifeprex, giving American women cheaper and easier access to abortion by medication. The decision was announced on Wednesday to relax restrictions that were in place for over a decade.

The FDA eased access to Mifeprex by updating the prescribing information on the drug’s label – expanding use to 70 days of gestation from the current 49 days, cutting the recommended dose of the drug and reducing the number of mandatory visits to a doctor.

Many abortion providers (an estimated 83%) had already moved away from the previous restrictions over the years but states like Texas, North Dakota and Ohio have laws that restrict medication abortions by requiring prescription of the drug strictly according to the old label.

The revision opened another front in the fight over abortion that has spilled into the U.S. presidential election campaign and come up again in the Supreme Court. Anti-abortion campaigners condemned the expanded access to the drug, which was in response to an application and clinical data submitted by the manufacturer, Danco Laboratories.

Under the new label, women will take one 200 mg tablet of Mifeprex on day 1 instead of 3 200 mg tablets. They will take 800 mcg of misoprostol 24-48 hours after taking Mifeprex. Previously they took 400 mcg on day 3. Under the old label, women were asked to return to their doctor 14 days after taking Mifeprex for an examination. The new label recommends that they return between 7 and 14 days for an assessment.

What Does “a Good Death” Mean?

Avoiding the thought of the inevitability of death is pretty much standard fare for most humans. It’s said that American culture, in particular, has become increasingly death-phobic. Even so, if we were forced to contemplate the end, we’d surely all wish to die well. But what does that mean, exactly?

A new review of existing literature, published in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, asks what makes a “good death” according to those involved in the process. What do the dying and the soon-to-be bereaved consider to be a good death?

This is a question debated all the time in hospices and palliative care settings. Yet coming up with an elegant definition of a “good death” that fits all viewpoints is challenging. A few organizations have attempted to sum up the principles of dying well.

According to an Institute of Medicine report, a good death is: “Free from avoidable distress and suffering for patient, family and caregivers, in general accord with the patient’s and family’s wishes, and reasonably consistent with clinical, cultural and ethical standards.”

That’s a mouthful, but it does cover a lot of bases.

Researchers from the Sam and Rose Stein Institute for Research on Aging at the University of California-San Diego School of Medicine decided to carry out a review of the existing literature to uncover what makes for a good death.

Their list includes (among other factors) dignity, family, religious or spiritual considerations, life completion and comfort with a specific dying process. Those circumstances would seem to come about as close as possible to making death feel like the natural event it certainly is.